Times 25409: Senseless cheering downunder

Author   mctextPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 27:19

Getting just a tad harder as the week goes on … for me at least. But nothing too difficult here. One trap for the over-hasty solver and a few I’ve got from the defs and will have to UNPACK as I go.

Note to Olivia: I answered your query about Paul and My Word on yesterday’s blog. Somewhat late I’m afraid. Apologies.

Note #2: The new LJ visual editor is putting several line spaces where I don’t want them. On deletion they reappear. Apologies again then.


Across
1 STUP,ID. ID for ‘papers’; and ‘returns’ means ‘puts back’ = STUP. (Note the repetition of ‘It’s senseless’ in 23ac.)
5 CONQUEST. C (cold) + ON QUEST (while searching). Def (catch) and answer are both nouns.
9 BARRACKS. Two meanings. First is ‘jeers at’. In Australia, the word has undergone semantic reversal. As in ‘She barracks for Fremantle’.
10 GRAVID. GR VI including A, then D (daughter). My LOI, wanting the AD together.
11 PEANUT. P{rofitabl}E, then reverse TUNA. (Product placement for John West?)
12 ANTIPODE. Anagram: Notepad I.
14 HOLIDAYMAKER. HAYMAKER (big blow), including 1 inside OLD.
17 EGGS AND BACON. Two meanings. The former (various kinds of Pultenaea) grow vigorously in the bush reserve just down the road from here. So FOI.
20 MOUSS,AKA. Drop the E (swEet’s heart) from MOUSSE. AKA (also known as) — a giveaway to the answer. A ghastly concoction of eggplant, to which I am allergic.
22 TOP DOG. Pan is a GOD (reversed); POT is a container (reversed).
23 JABBER. Two meanings. Lift and separate: fighting | talk.
25 KAMIKAZE. AMAZE (cause astonishment) including 1K; all after another K. Def and answer are adjectives.
26 STEADY ON. ON (about) after STEADY (regular BF — or GF for that matter).
27 Omitted.


Down
2 TEASER. Two meanings.
3 PARENTHESES. PARE (peel) & THESES (theories), including N. The def is given by instanciation: (shown here).
4 DECATHLON. CAT (whip) inside an anagram of HELD ON. ‘Jockey’ is the indicator. My fellow townsfolk can get four syllables out of this word.
5 COSTARD. STAR inside COD (trick). Also tried OST (??) inside CARD. Didn’t work but.
6 NIGHT. Change the S in SIGHT (spot) to N.
7 Omitted.
8 SKIN-DEEP. KIND (type) inside SEE (make sure — ‘See that it’s done Carruthers!’) & P (page). The def is ‘surface’.
13 PLAIN-SPOKEN. PAINS (great care) including L; PEN (writer) including OK (Roger).
15 YACHTSMAN. Anagram: as myth can. Those who do go round the world should sign a legally-binding document stating that they will not draw on Australian tax-payers’ funds to drag them out of the Southern Ocean.
16 {s}IGNORA,NT. Like those 1ac folk who 23ac ‘decathalon’.
18 BLACKEN. The def is ‘soil’. Delete the R (‘not right’) from BRACKEN. Replace with L{oamy}. The ‘for ferns’ may have tempted speedsters into BRACKEN I fear. And the rest of us will probably have looked at least twice before deciding.
19 HOWZAT. HAT (bowler, DBE) including OZ, including W (wicket).
21 ARRAY. A, RY (railway, line) including RA (artist)
24 BAA. I don’t know how it is nowadays but, in my time, one typically sat three A-levels. They were letter graded. And … guess what? I got two As and a B. Art, English and French in that order. I don’t bleat about it much these days.

43 comments on “Times 25409: Senseless cheering downunder”

  1. 39 minutes, but ‘gradix’ for GRAVID for the same reason Macca cites – I didn’t spot what I take to be the yoda-speak of ’embracing a daughter’ (unless ’embracing’ has an ‘insertion’ meaning of which I am unaware).

    A feast for cricket lovers with both HOWZAT and EGGS AND BACON (the affectionate name for the colours of the MCC).

    Edited at 2013-02-27 03:34 am (UTC)

    1. Quite a normal containment indicator I thought. Surely it’s been used before? Several of the usual sources give: “include or contain”. NOAD’s example is: “his career embraces a number of activities — composing, playing, and acting”. It also gives the derivation as from M. English: “encircle, surround, enclose”.
      1. Containment indicator, yes, of course, but here the use is Yoda-esque, which is why I was hypothesising about other possible meanings. -:)
        1. Don’t get the Yoda bit at all. Perhaps I’m 1ac! The clue works fine for me if you lift and separate “a” and “daughter” (which we both failed to do at first). So: GR IV embracing A = GRAVI [[pause]] D{aughter}.
          1. Right – got it now.

            Re Yoda-speak, chagrined am I that you could think recognise embrace as containicator I could not.

  2. 34 minutes. I should have taken 35 to allow time to think 18dn through properly, then I might have got it right. Didn’t know the breakfast plant or the big blow.

    Edited at 2013-02-27 05:02 am (UTC)

  3. Not too bad at all for me today, starting with GRAVID, ending with STEADY ON. Got CONQUEST once I thought we were in for a pangram (but ending with no X or F), and even took time to correct my penultimate I to E in PARENTHESES and work out the correct L/R trap at BLACKEN.

    However… I did get a couple wrong … custard at 5dn, and, I had nonity at 27ac. Another mental block. I was so sure of the cryptic, I convinced myself it had to be an unfamiliar word…

  4. Accessing the puzzle online at 0641 gmt, I find that the whole puzzle is wrong: numbers in the wrong places, clues not fitting the grid. Anyone else found this?
    2. When that happened to me I was told that it was something to do with clearing the memory on my computer, which still held bits of old puzzles hence the mix up. I can’t remember the solution!
  5. I was trying to do the crossword online, which is where I found the dud puzzle. The online print version is OK, so I’ll have to work from that, even though I can’t print out at the moment. Gradese
  6. 25m, with a very long pause in the middle when nothing went in for about 10 minutes. Eventually I got HOLIDAY MAKER and finished steadily from there.
    I’m not sure if I’ve come across GRAVID before, and botany was a weakness as ever. I wouldn’t have known EGGS AND BACON by any name, but Chambers suggests that the reference may be to the Bird’s-Foot Trefoil, Lotus Corniculatus rather than Pultenaea. Mind you for all I know this might be the same thing.
    BLACKEN required a bit of care. The shape of the clue suggests BRACKEN, but “primarily loamy, not right” is clear enough.

    Edited at 2013-02-27 09:07 am (UTC)

  7. Had 3 or 4 looks at BLACKEN before finally putting it in. I think I was put off being more decisive on this by remembering that the last one of these we had (LESSEN/LESSON) had the correct answer coming after “for”, and I didn’t want to make the same mistake for the same reason again – of course the construction of the rest of the clue was different this time.

    I guessed STUPID from the definition and the mention of “papers”, but didn’t get the “PUTS back” device until coming here. I think the last time we had one of these (DEFEND?) I missed it too …

  8. Excellent puzzle apart from the DBE at 19D. Some well hidden definitions and tricky constructions – particularly BLACKEN which will catch lots of people I suspect

    Didn’t know those sailors got off scot free – I always assumed their insurers would have to pay something towards the Oz Navy/Airforce costs for saving the boat

    1. The last one I saw on the news was quaffing a fine Australian shiraz and tucking into a chunk of our beef on board HMAS Something. Good job he wasn’t Sri Lankan and coming from the north in a leaky fishing boat with 50 others! (If you run into Tony Bullimore, ask him to send the cheque.)

      Edited at 2013-02-27 10:29 am (UTC)

      1. We get lots of them around the UK and particularly down here in the south. Many a Captain Pugwash finds the Channel is a bit tricky and the life boat goes out to save him. But I don’t think they get away without paying something. Our illegals come on lorries rather than in boats.
        1. Should hope not. I had to cough up $822 to get to Fremantle Hospital (40k from here) in an ambulance last year when my pancreas decided it didn’t like the rest of my body.

          As for refugees: only our local right-wingers call them “illegals”. Most have been proven to be genuine asylum seekers but treated like s**t in mid-ocean. And worse when “captured”. So a certain amount of double standards here, depending who it is that happens to get into trouble in local waters.

          No steak and shiraz for your average Sri Lankan in fear of his life.

          1. Soon they’ll be able to take the short cut in the Round the World yacht race, zip around the top of Russia, through the North-West Passage, back to Blighty in no time at all.
            Rob
  10. I knew bacon and eggs as the trefoil, as confirmed by Chambers (which doesn’t list the Pultanaea at all) so entered solution from enumeration, assuming it to be a variant, without checking elsewhere.
    1. = anything with three leaves; esp. clover, according to Chambers. (Except on St Patrick’s Day?) Can I have chapter and verse on that?

      On edit, now I find this:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_corniculatus
      As mentioned earlier by Keriothe.

      A very specific trefoil then. And probably better known in the N. Hemisphere.

      Edited at 2013-02-27 10:59 am (UTC)

      1. From Chambers under “bird”:
        birdsfoot trefoil noun
        A perennial plant (Lotus corniculatus) with flat-topped clusters of yellow flowers on stalks, often tinged with red (also bacon-and-eggs, eggs-and-bacon)
        1. Confirmed then! I shall take my parochial swag for a long walk and see you all Wednesday fortnight.

          Edited at 2013-02-27 11:38 am (UTC)

  11. Hooray, avoided the BLACKEN trap and got it all right, in about 40 minutes allowing for interruptions… am now wiser about various plant species, if a little bored, after reading the above contributions.
    ANTIPODE – is a noun meaning ‘the exact opposite’; ANTIPODES is a place opposite another on the earth, or people who live there, says my online dictionary, so the setter is spot on.
  12. 21 minutes, and a good interesting solve which didn’t start for me until EGGS, and even that a horticultural guess.
    Easy favourite today was STUPID, obviously written to make us feel that way once we’ve twigged how it works.
  13. Agree at 21D but this was rather good I think. Plump for KAMIKAZE, as it#s probably very hard to clue.

    47 minutes.

    Thanks to all concerned.

    Chris.

  14. 20:48 … one of rare occasions when I didn’t fall into the bear trap. Anyone who did is in illustrious company – today’s leader board makes interesting reading, especially the page where the ‘Incorrect 1’ group begins.

    Really smart puzzle. COD has to be STUPID.

    1. Like Janie above 5 dn got me, heard of custard apple but not costard (which LJ hasn’t heard of either, comes up as a spelling error), so guessed cud must be slang for trick.
      Rob
  15. Got through in about 25 minutes, avoiding the trap at BLACKEN. Nice puzzle, only problem being puzzlement over the apple and misreading mct’s omitted NINETY at first, and trying to find a word for an impossibly tiny number before my brain righted itself. Apparently I was 1AC for a bit there, and STUPID is COD too. Regards to all.
  16. 21.14 and thought I was on the slow side – seemed straightforward enough. What an odd word antipode is – don’t think I’ve ever seen/heard it being used. Rather wonder if anyone else has for 100 years or so. The plant (e. and b.)’s a new one on me.
  17. 26 minutes. I didn’t know the plant but it became obvious once the rest of the grid got filled. I was stymied for a long while by the tricky definition at 5a. A nice piece of misdirection. As a result 8d was my LOI – I needed the initial letter. I didn’t realise that BARRACKS has a different meaning in Oz. This forum is a constant mine of useless (and occasionally useful) information. Ann
  18. 10:35 for me, held up at the end dithering over PARENTHESIS/PARENTHESES for 3dn (is a THESIS a collection of theories?), before eventually deciding on the plural. Apart from that, a very nice puzzle.
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  20. Hi all,
    Congrats to this website and the excellent daily blogs. The explanations and discussions are invaluable to ‘cryptic learners’ such as myself.
    In this puzzle I was curious about the construction of 1A, which appears to be a ‘two-stage’ cryptic? In a Times-style crossword I wasn’t sure if such a clue would be viewed as within the rules of fair construction (in much the same way as an indirect anagram would not be viewed as fair?), but from the comments I see there are no complaints (indeed several contributors have it as their COD). So no doubt there’s something within the rules that I am missing with this one (and perhaps I am being ‘diputs’, as the urban dictionary would have me!)
    Certainly not griping myself (all part of the learning experience), just very curious! 🙂
    Regards to all,
    Mark

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